


in this moment

by novelized



Category: Nashville (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelized/pseuds/novelized
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Lexington's life, in snapshots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in this moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissMeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMeggie/gifts).



1.  
A girl in Will’s third grade class has a crush on him. She’s a pretty little thing – that’s what his mama says – with blonde hair always done up in ribbons, and she wears dresses every day, not like the tomboys he plays football with. Will never tells anybody this, but he likes the tomboys better. At least they know how to throw a ball.

But his friends make a big deal out of the crush, always elbowing him when she’s looking his way, always pushing him over there at recess. She doesn’t even play four square. She just stands in a group of girls who whisper and giggle all the way until the bell rings, which is a major waste of free time, if you ask him.

But no one asks him. There are some things you just don’t ask.

By Valentine’s Day he has his very first girlfriend.

He still thinks he likes the tomboys better.

 

2.  
He has his first weird dream three weeks before his thirteenth birthday, and he wakes up in a cold sweat, breathing hard and flustered, and trying not to think about his best friend that way.

It’s not completely out of the blue – it comes unannounced in little flickers, when his mind wanders in math class, when he zones out in the locker room – but it’s usually shoved away, deep into the recess of his mind and ignored. It usually stops before anything happens. It usually doesn’t shake him to his core.

He stays home sick from school that day, and his mom doesn’t even question him like she usually does, takes one look at his face and orders him back to bed. He’s glad she doesn’t tuck him in. He’s horridly ashamed of the sheets. 

He knows then, at twelve years old, what it means – what it could mean, for high school and onward, for the rest of his god-damn life; he’s heard stories. Precautionary tales. He doesn’t know any of them personally but he does know what happens to people like them, knows that when they play “smear the queer” on the playground they mean it, and not one teacher intervenes. 

He stops hanging out with his best friend. Doesn’t even give him a reason. Just stops.

 

3.  
He gets into his first fistfight six weeks after that. He’s been in little tussles before – his dad always chuckles when his teachers send a note home, ruffles his hair, says “boys’ll be boys” when his mom fusses at him for it – but this is a real fight, big punches thrown, bloody lips and noses, a great purple shiner that Will rocks for nearly two weeks.

It’s because the kid had called Will gay. He had to do something about it. Make sure it never happened again. 

 

4.  
In the end, though, it comes down to this: he and a buddy are messing around in his basement, six beers deep. They’re just shooting the shit, talking sports, talking music, talking girls. Will’s third grade girlfriend with the ribbons in her hair has turned into the hottest piece of ass in the sophomore class, but Will’s buddy only rates her a six, a seven when she wears a low-cut shirt. Will says she’s not his type either. They’re both pretty quiet after that.

And then it happens. Gravitational pull or something; Will’s about to get up to change the radio station, his buddy’s reaching for a seventh beer, and then they’re fumbling, noses bumping, Will’s hat knocked aside. The first kiss is electric, and terrifying, and everything at once. They kiss, and kiss, and go farther than kissing, acting on instinct, doing things Will has only ever seen in dreams. It’s reckless and freeing and afterwards, Will swears it’ll never happen again. 

 

5.  
It happens again. 

 

6.  
If Will had to put a number on it, it happens one time too many. One time, that’s all. One less time and he could’ve stopped – he’s proven before that he can do that, he can _stop_ – could’ve lived out the rest of his life content with that part of him in the past. But he doesn’t stop, and it happens one time too many. Just one more time, one unlocked door, one silent garage opener. His dad at the top of the stairs. His dad’s _face_ , saying everything his words don’t. Won’t.

One less time and he never would’ve been riding shotgun in his dad’s old truck, never would’ve been told to get out, never would’ve watched his entire life head in the direction of home without him. But then, it’s not home anymore. He’s lost that privilege. Lost everything.

One time too many.

 

7.  
Nashville beckons him like a love song, and he gets swept right off his feet. Meets people he never would’ve met trapped in his tiny hick town, sings for people that actually listen, wines and dines the types of girls that he’s supposed to wine and dine. Just because it doesn’t come natural to him doesn’t mean it’s not easy. He never has trouble getting it up – almost never has trouble, and in the rare case he does, one quick peek into that lockbox in the recess of his mind and he’s good to go – and never lets it linger. One and done. Love ‘em and leave ‘em. 

Word gets around the streets that he’s a heartbreaker. If his dad could see him now.

 

8.  
Gunnar’s not at all like the brainwashed jocks that he’s used to hanging out with, which he thinks is why he likes him so much. He doesn’t remind him of the past. Doesn’t make him feel like he’s thirteen all over again, scared and overcompensating for it. Their friendship is fast and easy and fun, real fun.

But again, in the end: history has a way of repeating itself.

 

9.  
Gunnar forgives him, eventually. But he has to try harder. Has to throw an extra padlock on that box in the back of his mind. The first one was rusty, ready to crumble into dust. He sleeps with more girls. Even searches the internet for remedies, but he’s not sure he believes in religion and he doesn’t have a whole lot of cash. So it’s back to square one.

It’d be okay, after that, if it wasn’t for Brent.

 

10.  
Brent does things to Will’s brain that none of the rest of them had managed. It’s more than desire, it’s – overwhelming, it freaks him out. He thinks his mom would call those feelings. 

But he’s never given in to feelings, and he doesn’t plan on starting now. He holds out, and holds out, and holds out.

 

11.  
Until he doesn’t.

 

12.  
The thing he wants them to know, when they write about this, when they publish it in a fucking tabloid, when Jeff spins the story enough to make a pretty penny, is that it’s been a fucking lifelong battle. He was seven years old, for God’s sake, and just wanting to play a little schoolyard football. Things never happened the way they were supposed to, and it’s not his fault. He’s tried. He’s tried, and he’s tried, and he’s tried, and he’s failed.

A whistle blows. He stands there on the train tracks, tears clouding in his eyes, feeling the sharp wind whip across his face, the emptiness eating through his stomach like a parasite. “The hell you crying for?” his dad would say, if he were here now, if he could see Will like this, “don’t give me none of that pussy shit” – and then it hits Will that he’s wasting his last earthly thought on a man that had sat back and let him drop off the face of the earth like it was just natural progression.

It doesn’t seem right, but he doesn’t have time to think a new one.

So he does something better: he steps back.

 

13.  
As it turns out, that one step back was actually a pretty major step forward. Takes him six month to realize it, but then he does.

**Author's Note:**

> happy holidays! xx


End file.
